Monday’s Music Moves Me: It’s Baseball Time!

Okay, so the Super Bowl was played yesterday, and I understand the Atlanta Falcons managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Since I could care less about football, I didn’t watch. To me, Super Bowl Sunday means only one thing:

Pitchers and catchers report in less than two weeks!

Like most baseball fans, I’ve been waiting for the start of the baseball season since the end of the last one. Here are a few songs to get you in the mood.

John Fogerty, “Centerfield” The title track from his 1985 album, this became an instant hit at ballparks everywhere as a song to play after the home team has taken the field.

The Harry Simeone Singers, “It’s A Beautiful Day For A Ballgame” Joe Simpson, color commentator for Atlanta Braves baseball on Fox Sports South, thinks this is the best baseball song ever, and it is a good one. They used to play this before telecasts of Cubs games on WGN in the Sixties. I think it also made it into the first Major League movie.

Terry Cashman, “Talkin’ Baseball (Willie, Mickey, and the Duke)” More of a nostalgia song than a baseball one, this 1981 song catches the spirit of every baseball fan.

The Treniers, “Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)” I had never heard this one before today, but I saw “The Treniers” and had to include it.

“Hey Hey, Holy Mackerel” The Cubs were in the thick of the pennant race in 1969, and naturally they ended the season in second place behind the New York Mets. Every White Sox fan who lived on the North Side (like me) had to put up with a summer of hearing all about how the Cubs were going to win the World Series and be the Gods of Baseball, blah blah blah. This fight song was written during that period, and we heard it constantly. When the Cubs dropped out of first to stay, we got to sing it to them. The irony was delicious. “Hey Hey,” incidentally, was what Hall of Fame announcer Jack Brickhouse (who did both Cubs and White Sox games in the Sixties) used to shout when one of the hometown teams hit a home run.

Captain Stubby and The Buccaneers, “Let’s Go, Go-Go White Sox” This is the White Sox fight song, from 1959, when the Sox were in the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. They lost then, and it would be another 24 years before it became relevant again. Captain Stubby hosted a noontime kids’ cartoon show in the late Fifties and early Sixties.

There are many other baseball songs. Do you have a favorite? Let me know in the comments. That’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for February 6, 2017.

Monday’s Music Moves Me is sponsored by X-Mas Dolly, Callie, Cathy, and Stacy, so be sure and visit them, where you can also find the Linky for the other participants.

37 thoughts on “Monday’s Music Moves Me: It’s Baseball Time!”

Yes, yes, yes, John! I am so excited for baseball that I wore my Brandon Crawford jersey to the football party we went to yesterday. Let’s get this show on the road! What about “Take me out to the Ballgame,” and one of my personal favorites was from the Giants and Kansas City Royals during the World Series, “All about that Bass” https://youtu.be/py_gvT0ql70

How about “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.” They sing that I at the seventh inning stretch of every damn Cub game. Harry Carey started that tradition many years ago.
I, too, am a Sox fan raised on the north side. My grandson had the nerve to wear a Cubs championship shirt over to our house a few days ago. Can you imagine that? But, when you think of it, he did come over to see us, so I held my tongue.

John, Very good theme! I’m not a baseball fan but I appreciate the sport and the those who love it! After all, this is an American icon. The only tune I know and really like that you shared is Fogerty’s “Centerfield”. Unfortunately, I can’t think of any songs that haven’t already been mentioned that hast to do with baseball. I’m glad you’re excited your favorite sport is returning, though I just can’t get over how quickly the days are melting away. Thanks for taking centerfield on the dance floor, my friend!

I cheated. I try to contribute by memory only, but it has been on my mind that I couldn’t come up with more baseball songs – so I searched on Google. I had no idea that Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” was about a couple of old ball players reminiscing about the old glory days of baseball. Interesting.

JOHN ~
Baseball and football are the two sports I really like, but baseball will always be my favorite. I may have told you this before, but at the time I was born, my Ma was employed by the Los Angeles Dodgers. She continued after my Brother was born but left when Sister Bonehead came along.

We had season tickets in the family before I was born and didn’t sell them until the late ’90s, I believe. So, I “LITERALLY” grew up at Dodger Stadium and have countless wonderful memories of being there. We have photos of my Brother and I as toddlers on the field with Koufax and the Duke. (I’ve always loved that song ‘TALKIN’ BASEBALL’.) Being in the Stadium and seeing Kirk Gibson hit that homer in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series is the most magical memory of my lifetime.

John, from as far back as I can remember, every Dodger Baseball radio broadcast began with the playing of the first part of “It’s A Beautiful Day For A Ballgame” by The Harry Simeone Singers. Man, oh man, you have no idea how nostalgic that song is for me. I almost got tears in my eyes listening to it here. First time I’ve heard it since probably 1994.

BUT!!!… I never knew who did it. Up until reading THIS blog bit TODAY, I had always assumed that it was something that the Dodger organization had commissioned someone to write and record for the Dodger radio broadcasts. I had absolutely no idea that it was a song known outside of the L.A. area. Wow! What a discovery! Wait’ll I tell my Brother — I’ll bet he doesn’t know it’s a “real” song either.

That song has been earwormed into my brain ever since I first listened to it here at about 4:45 this morning. I’m still humming and whistling it, and will likely continue to do so for days… damn you… and thank you!
:o)

What are you going to do now that Vin Scully is retired? He was the best I ever heard, and I’ve heard a few great announcers in my day: Bob Elson, Jack Brickhouse, Harry, Skip, and Chip Caray, etc. I was in Southern California once, and driving home from dinner one evening I found the Dodgers game. I couldn’t leave the car until the game was finished.

Koufax was remarkable, a great pitcher with his standards: he wouldn’t play on Yom Kippur and retired rather than become addicted to the painkillers he couldn’t pitch without. Considering all the drugs some players pump into themselves today, that’s quite a switch.

Don Drysdale was the play-by-play announcer for the White Sox when Harry Caray took the money and ran to the North Side. He was another great announcer, and another fun one to watch when he was pitching. Loved his approach to an intentional walk: why waste four pitches when I can hit the guy and put him on? Today, he’d be thrown out, but back then, just part of the game, and the hitters understood it as well as the pitchers. Ron Cey, who played for the Dodgers and the Cubs, set some kind of a record for being hit by pitches; it was part of his offensive game.

JOHN, I always have a basic awareness of who is at the top and bottom of the divisions in baseball and football, but I’m afraid my enthusiasm for the sports is nothing like it once was. Honestly, I think the artificially “blown up” hitting records in baseball during the Steroid Era spoiled it for me and my zeal never really fully recovered.

As soon as you mentioned Drysdale, I thought to tell YOU about his intentional walk philosophy, but you already knew it and beat me to it. He was a tough dude. Man, I loved all those Old School players.

Koufax was a freaking monster and, as you pointed out, a principled one, too. What a shame that only a decade or so after he retired that the medical community developed a procedure that had it existed earlier could have healed Sandy’s ailment permanently. I believe that had he been able to pitch another 5 or 6 years, he’d probably still own every pitching record in the book.

Ron Cey — “the Penguin” — I actually do remember his propensity for HBP at-bats. Ha! We kids used to love imitating his batting stance, and some of the other more unique ones as well, like McCovey, Yaz, and big John Mayberry.

I hate to sound too biased but Vin Scully was the best announcer I ever heard, too. My Brother and my old friend Pooh (who always votes on my BOTBs) have often reflected on how lucky we were to grow up hearing Vin all Summer, every Summer. Just recently, I mentioned to them that Vin Scully’s voice at night, coming through a transistor radio on the family’s front porch while we kids played games in the street is probably the closest I’ve ever been to Heaven. Golden childhood memories!

Kids today, what great memories will most of them have? The time they got to Level 70 on some electronic video war game?

Tommy John surgery saved a lot of pitchers’ careers, and some position players and athletes in other sports have had it as well. Mary asked me once if there really was a Tommy John… he, Joe Horlen, and Gary Peters were three of the top pitchers in the American League in the late Sixties, pitching for the White Sox. The Sox traded Tommy to the Dodgers for Dick Allen in ’71, and I think he had his surgery as a Dodger. Guy is a hero: when the idea of UCL surgery was presented to him, he said “What have I got to lose?” and went through with it. I think he pitched ten years after that, and modeled a lot of uniforms in that time.

Yep. I actually remember when Tommy John came to the Dodgers. He wore #25. Funny how some little details like that can stick with you for decades.

Gary Peters pitched for the White Sox? Ahh! Now that I didn’t know. But I did know OF Gary Peters, because my family was always really big into board games and our #1 favorite was always ‘All-Star Baseball’ (which we all called “Spin-the-Dial”). You might know the game: you have cards that represent the various players and their hitting statistics are represented by the size of different numbered spaces on the card (1: Home Run; 7: Single; 9: Walk; 5: Triple; 11: Double, etc.) You spin the dial and where it lands determines the outcome of that at-bat.

We must have played a godzillion hours on that game, for years and years and years! Ha! Lotta arguments, too. But that was fun.

And I ALWAYS took Gary Peters as my primary pitcher because he had a bigger #1 space than any other pitcher. I always put his card into the holder a special way, making sure certain printed lines were aligned with each other. And it was AMAZING how many home runs that guy hit for me; more than most of my infielders.

My Sister was supposed to mail the Gary Peters card to me when I moved to Reno but she never did, dang it!

Gary played most of his career with the White Sox, and was an excellent hitter. Eddie Stanky had him batting sixth in one game, because he was a stronger hitter than most of the guys in the lineup. There was a game they sent him in as a pinch-hitter, he hit a home run to tie the score, then got the win when the Sox went ahead to stay.

Funny story about him: He ended his career with the Red Sox, and he was one of the first pitchers Carlton Fisk caught. He was not having a good game, and the capper was someone hit a grand slam off him over the Green Monster in Fenway. Dick Williams (the manager) signals to Fisk to go talk to him so they can get a reliever up. So Fisk trots out to the mound, where Gary is still staring at the wall, and stands there until Gary turns around, looks at him, and shouts “What the **** are you doing here?” Fisk just turned around and walked back behind the plate.

Those were the days when ballplayers made next to nothing, and when he retired, his father said, “well, son, time to get a real job.” He was an engineer, so he had no trouble finding work. Those were the days when the players spent their free time getting their college degrees and spent the winter working on assembly lines…

Cool story. I could tell by his card that he’d been a heck of a hitter for a pitcher. His Home Run space really was bigger than some infielders.

Although they were still active when I was a tot, Koufax and Drysdale were a shade before my time in terms of memory. But according to my Ma, Drysdale was such a good hitting pitcher that it wasn’t uncommon for the Dodgers to use him as a pinch hitter.

Koufax was the opposite. My Ma said he could throw a one-hit shutout but if he (luckily) got a hit in the game — even just a single — in the post-game interviews all he’d want to talk about was his hit. Ha!

(And some writer once said that Koufax gave the batters an easy 0-for-4, while Drysdale gave them a really hard 0-for-4. He’d have them diving into the dirt and jumping out of the batter’s box constantly.)

I love Old School baseball — all the stories and the best nicknames in sports.

Baseball is more than a game. It’s almost a way of life. You rarely see fans of other sports get as involved in the game as you do with baseball, to where you see people get into involved and heated arguments about who was better. Think about it: how many times have you seen a middle-aged and overweight man walking around wearing a cap from
a major-league team, probably the team he followed as a kid?

I do. That was Veeck’s son that planned that. There are videos of it on YouTube; I was on third shift and didn’t actually know what had happened until I got off work the next morning. The field was in horrible shape, then while the Sox were on the road they had a rock concert, in the rain. Gene Bossard earned his salary that week….

Missed this the other day, but a weird one popped into my mind. They’re a strange, but interesting group whose album I first got on 8 Track so many years ago. I’ve since replaced it on CD. Here’s “The Red Sox Are Winning” by Earth Opera.